LAURA'S LOVE LIFE ADVICE: Is It Smart To Publicly Air Your Feelings About An Ex Like Taylor Swift Does?

Taylor has immortalized John Mayer, Joe Jonas and Taylor Lautner in song… but should you ever admit how YOU feel in public on social media forums like Facebook?

Taylor Swift is notorious for turning the pain of her personal breakups into hit songs, but is airing the dirty laundry of her failed relationships really the best way to deal with her emotions?

The 20-year-old singer blasts brief flingJohn Mayer on her new album, Speak Now, in a track called “Dear John.” The two met and fell in lust in 2009 while collaborating on the duet “Half of My Heart.” In this new song, Taylor reportedly sings, “Dear John/ I see it all now that you’re gone/ Don’t you think I was too young/ To be messed with/ The girl in the dress/ Cried the whole way home/ I should’ve known.” She adds, “It was wrong/ Don’t you think nineteen’s too young/ To be played/ By your dark, twisted games/ When I loved you so… My mother accused me of losing my mind/ But I swore I was fine… You’ll add my name to your long list of traitors who don’t understand/ And I’ll look back in regret I ignored what they said/ ‘Run as fast as you can’.”

All I can say is “wow.” Of course, this isn’t the first time Taylor — who turns 21 in December — has aired her feelings about an ex in song. Like Carly Simon before her, who famously blasted a famous former lover in “You’re So Vain,” she wistfully apologizes to ex-boyfriend and Valentine’s Day co-star Taylor Lautner in the song “Back to December,” also offSpeak Now, and ripped her former love Joe Jonas in “Forever & Always” after he dumped her during a phone call.

But while Taylor’s pain is profitable — if not a little embarrassing — it is NOT smart for us noncelebrities to air our feelings about an ex in a public way! Duke studentKaren Owen is the perfect example — she sent a mass email detailing her sexploitations, ranking 13 athletes she had slept with, which obviously ended up in the wrong hands.

So please, don’t go posting poems about your pain on Facebook, or dissing your ex on Twitter. It may seem cathartic at the time, but you’re only going to feel foolish later when your peers comment on the way you’ve managed to express your pain. So don’t go posting the lyrics to a Taylor song a la “Should’ve Said No” with the lament “should’ve said no” to so-and-so. Write in your diary or buy a new outfit instead — or better yet, find a new object of your affection! Nothing says moving on better than actually DOING it!